Doing the Math
by Empress Shellie
Summary: It was time for Amy to comply with her mother's wish that she dates at least once a year. She glanced at her daily planner to recall the name of the person she was going to meet. According to the dating website, she was to see a certain Sheldon Cooper.


_**Disclaimers: The only thing I own here is my own imagination. The characters, the excerpt, and other trademarks here belong to their respective owners and creators, especially Chuck Lorre who gave us these two characters to love. I don't profit from this so please don't sue.**_

* * *

_"Excuse me. I'm Amy Farrah Fowler. You're Sheldon Cooper."_

_ "Hello, Amy Farrah Fowler. I'm sorry to inform you that you have been taken in by unsupportable mathematics designed to prey on the gullible and the lonely. Additionally, I'm being blackmailed with a hidden dirty sock."_

_ "If that was slang, I'm unfamiliar with it. If it was literal, I share your aversion to soiled hosiery. In any case, I'm here because my mother and I have agreed that I will date at least once a year."_

_ "Interesting. My mother and I have the same agreement about church."_

_ "I don't object to the concept of a deity but I'm baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance."_

_ "Well, then, you might want to avoid East Texas."_

_ "Noted. Now, before this goes any further, you should know that all forms of physical contact up to and including coitus are off the table."_

_ "May I buy you a beverage?"_

_ "Tepid water, please."_

* * *

It was already dark when Amy opened her apartment door and allowed herself in. She hadn't meant to return late, but she was not able to keep track of time in the bookstore where she'd gone off to after her date.

_Date_, she thought, snorting, as she let her purse fall onto an empty chair with a thud. She never really did like that sort of social activity between two people. Going on that date—or any date, for that matter—was more out of her obligation to her mother. Now that that's through, Amy was delighted that she could go back to her old, solitary life. Plus, she could borrow the George Foreman grill she'd grown fond of using.

She supposed she could buy herself the signature fresh-off-the-Home-Shopping-Network machine. After all, she held a good job as a noted neurobiologist at UCLA, earning more than enough for the introverted life she led. Still, procuring the piece of kitchen equipment would not keep her mother's nose out of her social life—or lack thereof. The deal was two-pronged: Amy would date no less than one time a year and her mother would let her borrow the grill, coupling it with her mother's silence on the matter of her dating. It was a routine that Amy knew she would be stuck in and had to carry on until the day she died. She inferred that even after she had just wrapped up this calendar's date.

_A date_, she mused again, still with the same derisive tone she used earlier. _What was his name again?_ She paused in her tracks en route to the fridge to get herself a bottle of Yoo-Hoo to recall.

"Sheldon Cooper," she recited out loud, a hand pushing the fridge door close for emphasis. She initially berated herself for forgetting but the feeling of remorse faded away just as quickly. Being honest with herself, she never really cared to remember the names of every single soul she had met either through the dating website or through blind dates set up for her by her equally nosy and overbearing relatives. Most of the guys that she'd met had cleverly thought of various excuses to get away as soon as she had introduced herself to them as Amy Farrah Fowler. Quite a few of her dates turned out to be way, way below the bar she had set to be a 'potentially' suitable mate, the standard being herself. Still, some never even bothered showing up.

_But not this guy_.

He had stayed and even offered to buy her a beverage. He sounded so intellectual, what with his diction and the way he employed them which she noticed was very close to hers. And even with two other males for company, he appeared in the coffee shop nonetheless.

Furiously, Amy shook her head of her thoughts and poured herself a drink. She figured there was no sense in even looking back. The day was almost through, the task was accomplished, and she didn't need to go on another date for at least a year. Still, she couldn't obliterate the image of his breathtakingly blue eyes off her mind. And she knew, deep in her heart, she'd probably give anything to see them again.

A little thought nagged at her, compelling her to turn on her laptop and open Google. "What harm can this do?" she asked herself, shrugging. "This is for knowledge's sake."

The search engine's portal greeted her and without hesitation, she entered two key words in the field: _Sheldon Cooper_.

The first link apparently led to his Facebook account. The second was connected to his MySpace account. She almost clicked to check the first link when she took notice of the third item on the list of Google's results. It was from the California Institute of Technology website.

_Perhaps this Sheldon is smarter than I thought he'd be_, Amy hinted with a sip of her chocolate drink. After all, Caltech does have an unsoiled reputation of housing _some_ of the country's best minds and technical expertise. Then she snorted at the intended stress. She was still loyal to her very own UCLA, of course.

Amy finally gave it a go and clicked on the link that presented her with a very impressive profile. It was there that she learned that Sheldon Lee Cooper is his full name_, What a mouthful!_; that he has earned his B.S., M.S., M.A., PhD., ScD., _Gee, he doesn't stop learning, does he?_; that his official designation is Senior Theoretical Particle Physicist, _It takes a lot of brain to dig into theories_; that he's the genius behind the lauded paper 'Grand Unification Using String-Network Condensates', _Wow, he wrote that?_; that he's the youngest recipient of the Stevenson Award, _I thought the youngest was some Korean child prodigy_; and that his I.Q. is 187,_ Close enough to my 188_.

For an intellectual like her, Amy had to admit that the information she got off the Net about Sheldon was highly remarkable. It wasn't everyday that she'd get to meet someone within the same cerebral bracket as her. It didn't come out of his mouth earlier when they were talking in the coffee shop. True, he spoke differently compared to the rest of the mediocre minds she'd always come across. However, Amy didn't think their elocution and overall rhetoric were things they had in common as she'd always believed it _ought_ to be the way people speak.

Amy leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. _Why am I still thinking of this?_ It wasn't like they were going to meet again, anyway. And even if they did, she didn't think that she and Sheldon had a common denominator. It was revealed over their tepid-water-and-hot-tea talk earlier. He spoke highly of science fiction which, to her, was nothing but hogwash and claptrap. He shared his intense awe of comic books and superheroes, prompting her to wonder if the man in front of her was actually just a child trapped in such a tall—and honestly, good-looking—frame. And when he began talking about trains—both model and actual—she thought he wasn't ever going to stop. Still, she chose not to argue with him and just concentrated on what might be going on in that seemingly delightful brain of his. That, at the very least, she could probably find interesting.

A series of shrill beeps from her phone caught Amy's attention. Not wanting to hear more, she retrieved the gadget from the purse she'd left near the door. The message was from her mother: _Amy, how did your date go? I trust you have met the man who will make the other half of my future grandchildren?_

Amy rolled her eyes, unsure whether to laugh or to cry. "Oh, mother…" Finally, she decided she might as well make her mother happy without leading her on. Opening a new tab, she logged in to her email to start on that update.

She had only typed in 'Dear Mother' when her phone sounded off again, this time with an incoming call. _Couldn't she wait? _Shaking her head, she pressed a button to receive the call which was presumably from her mother's. "I was just about to send you an e-mail."

There seemed a moment of hesitation. "I don't see how that's possible as I haven't given you my contacts yet, Amy Farrah Fowler."

Amy blinked then looked at the screen. It displayed a number than hadn't been in her phone book yet. Replacing the phone back next to her ear, she cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. I mistook you for someone else."

"That's understandable. We only met today."

Amy's heart skipped a beat. It was probably _him_ but she didn't want to believe. "Again, I'm sorry but I don't have your number in my contacts list." Holding her breath, she asked, "May I know who this is?"

"It's Dr. Sheldon Cooper. I got your number from Koothrappali as I have clumsily forgotten to ask you personally earlier at the coffee shop."

For some inexplicable reason, the words caused Amy to feel excited. But she hid the thrill under a cloak of formality. "What can I do for you, Doctor Cooper?"

The minute of vacillation was there again though this time, it was much shorter. "I was wondering if…if you'd be interested in forming an intellectual bond with me. I think it would be beneficial for us both to have a scholarly discourse on ideas that only people like us could comprehend."

"What are you saying?"

"Amy Farrah Fowler...may we be...friends?"

Amy smiled. _Perhaps, this time, the math was right…_

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

_** I decided to do a fluffy, sweet Shamy fic because, A.) I needed some upper from the last fic I wrote, which was a heartbreaking Lenny fic; B.) the Season 6 premiere of TBBT is only just hours away, and; C:) I just saw Jim Parsons dance Oppa Gangnam style at Craig Ferguson's show and his sexy hips just turned me on.  
**_

_** This is for Pammie, who can work with me on the same wavelength, and Rubyanjel, because this is how it all began.**_


End file.
